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Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Depressing view of Academia

So I officially started going through available post-doc positions this week, now that I'm back from my vacation. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do when I finish my PhD next year (assuming I do...), and of course, I came back to the academia vs. industry question.

In weighing the evidence, a friend pointed me to this article on the problems facing new scientists in academia. Somehow, it does a nice job of dissuading me from thinking about going down that route - although I'm not completely convinced industry is the way to go yet either.

Read for yourself: Real Lives and White Lies in the Funding of Scientific Research

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7 Comments:

Anonymous Mikael said...

Yes, that article makes for some very depressive reading. Note, though, that you can still do a post-doc even if you don't think you'll continue in academia. I've noticed many life science companies (especially big pharmas) consider it a big plus if you've done say 3 years of post-doc.

September 15, 2009 7:39:00 PM PDT  
Blogger dawe said...

At least you can choose between Academia and Corporate... I live in Italy, we had no choice other than Academia (or migrate somewhere in the so called civil world).

September 18, 2009 12:32:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Anthony Fejes said...

That is an interesting perspective.

Although, just for the record, there aren't as many choices here as you may think. If I'm lucky, I might find something academic (eg, post-doc) in Vancouver, but the only other places (I am currently aware of) in Canada doing this work is in Toronto - at 3354km, that's about the same as the distance between Moscow and Madrid.

Industrially, I'm not aware of any work being done in next-gen sequencing within 1000km of Vancouver. (I'd have to immigrate to California, in the U.S.) Of course, I've started my search in the academic space so I may have missed something.

I just happen to be lucky to be in one of two cities in Canada, a country the size of Europe) that do this type of work - if I were any where else, moving wouldn't even be a question.

Anthony

September 18, 2009 7:37:00 AM PDT  
Blogger sm_is_bakc said...

Did you skip Alberta, or was it meant to be!

September 30, 2009 10:18:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Anthony Fejes said...

Yikes... I wasn't aware that Alberta had next gen sequencing going on. They're not on the unofficial sequencing map:

http://tinyurl.com/orm8cr

Who is Alberta has a second-gen sequencer?

September 30, 2009 10:31:00 AM PDT  
Blogger sm_is_bakc said...

Not sure about who or where.. but dont need to have in-house sequencers for NGS!

But I think there were groups in Edmonton / Calgary with NGS going on at not-so-small scall

September 30, 2009 10:38:00 AM PDT  
Blogger Anthony Fejes said...

That's a good point - I just assumed that groups doing the fundamental bioinformatics of second generation sequencing will be synonymous with those that have their own sequencing. Clearly that doesn't have to be the case.

I stand corrected. Thanks!

September 30, 2009 10:45:00 AM PDT  

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